Media campaign against Jarosław Kaczyński falls flat

Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland's largest liberal daily newspapers, has published an investigative story they had earlier claimed would shake up the Polish political scene. The piece was supposed to personally discredit the leader of the Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński. However, it turned out that the text concerning the activity of ‘Srebrna’, a company active Warsaw's real estate market, does not contain any sensational information.

The piece published in Gazeta Wyborcza daily gives fragments of a conversation between the leader of the Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński and an Austrian businessman. The conversation concerns a project to build a multi-functional office, hotel, trade and apartment tower blocks on land owned by the ‘Srebrna’ company, which is run by close associates of Kaczyński. In the secretely recorded conversation, the leader of the Law and Justice party acknowledges that the Austrian businessman incurred costs in developing the project, but is also aware that there was no formal legal agreement for the project to start. The conversation shows that Kaczyński in the project suggested to the businessman that he would have a good chance of receiving a payment if he goes to the court and that this would make it easier for the company which owned the land, to pay, because without legal contracts, the payment was uncertain.

Instead of discreding Kaczyński, the recorded conversation stands in stark contrast with what Poles heard on the tapes leaked during the Secret Tapes Scandal of 2014 when a number of the most prominent liberal politicans in Poland were recorded by a group of waiters in upscale Warsaw restaurants. One of the most sensational pieces of information could be found on the tape recorded of a conversation between Paweł Wojtunik, the head of the Central Anticorruption Bureau and Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the Vice-Minister of Infrastructure. On the tape, Wojtunik can be heard telling Bieńkowska that the Minister of Interior, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, had ordered his men to set a guard booth in front of the Russian Embassy ablaze during the annual Independence Day March in order to blame the incident on the Polish nationalists groups organizing the march.

Another shocking revelation could be heard in the recorded conversation between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski, and Poland's richest man, Jan Kulczyk. The Minister of Foreign Affairs tells the businessman that he is disappointed with the Polish Ambassador in the USA, Ryszard Schnepf, for failing to dissuade the Polish Supreme Audit Office from conducting an investigation into the ballooning costs and financial irregularities connected with renovation of the Polish Embassy in Washington D.C.

Poles are also reacting to the differences in language that can be heard on Kaczyński's tape comparing with Secret Tapes Scandal of 2014. While the head of the conservative Law & Justice Party keeps a civil tone throughout his conversations, the liberal politicians recorded in 2014 shocked the Polish public by using surprisingly vulgar language when engaging in backroom politics.

Some political commentators speculate that by publishing the recorded tapes of Kaczyński, Gazeta Wyborcza has fired the first shot in what is expected to be a series of secret tapes to be released during this year's electoral campaign.

Tapes from the 2014 Secret Tapes Scandal have been leaked on several occasions and many suspect that additional tapes will be leaked in the months ahead of the parliamentary election in November.